What Do You Stand to Lose?

I've fallen into the habit of asking writers to fill out the Character Emotional Development Plot Profile for themselves as well as for their protagonist. One question more than all others reveals depth of passion.

QUESTION: What do you stand to lose if you do not accomplish your writing goal?

WRITERS' ANSWERS:

I've lost my way and haven't been able to find it again

The evil voices will be proven correct

Sanity

My story will not make it into the world

Self-respect

Me

My self-esteem

A sense of accomplishment before the real deadline

Self-fulfillment

Peace of mind

In the work I do with writers, I offer guidance about plot and structure and meaning in relationship to the protagonist's ultimate transformation. I also strive to provide insight into the writer's journey.

Writing is a solitary activity and can make you feel cut-off and separate and alone. Until, that is, you attend your first writers conference, join a critique group, form a writing group, read blogs like this one. 

Everyone who creates something out of nothing questions themselves. Who am I to write?

All writers revise endlessly.

No one knows what they truly are writing about. 

Every writer is shy about the choices they make. 

My greatest hope for you is to remember we all start a story the same--one word on the page at a time and to encourage you to feel your way to how this next author answers when asked the same question: 

What do you stand to lose if you are unsuccessful at achieving your writing goal?

Not a thing. Everything is as it should be...

Shift from Wantabe to Writer

Comment from a writer I'm working with that shifted the same writer from resistance and excuses to consistent, daily writing and led to this post: 

"My identity is not wrapped up in the book. I am just the writer."

This is big. From my work with writers, I've seen that the more invested the writer in the end result = creating the great American novel that will give them status and awards and attention and respect or, in other words, self-enhancement, are the writers who struggle the most and take the longest to finish, especially the first draft. 

The more our egos are attached to the outcome, the more difficult the process of writing.

Identification means you're someone when successful and that you are no one when you're lacking. 

The more you identify with the end result, the more difficult it is to stay in the now of putting one word on the page at a time and the easier it is to listen to the internal antagonists as they whisper doubts and tell you you're not good enough, don't do enough, don't deserve success, aren't smart enough...

The more your ego is involved in the outcome, the less able you are to actually write.

Writing and every other artistic endeavor is linked to the act of creation and is meant to be honored. 

When you separate yourself from the identification of "my" book, you create distance which allows inspiration to flow.

Jigsaw Puzzles, Not Everyone Likes Them

At a recent plot workshop, one of the writers stopped me on the way to lunch to ask for help. I asked her to tell me a bit about her project.

As soon as she starts in, I'm hooked. She has a truly novel idea with an even more novel format in which to tell her story.

As with most highly creative writers, she has trouble bringing the story into focus. She wanders to one plot point and then flits to another unrelated point. I hold each of these fragments and slowly begin to put them into position in my mind for the overall structure. (I've been weird like that since I was a kid, and a non-verbal one at that. I remember stories about how I could put together jigsaw puzzles of any piece count with the pieces upside-down and only the grey backs as reference. Hey, I warned you I was weird that way.)

With lunch plates chiming and my stomach grumbling, I wait as she retrieves yet another element of her story. The deeper she goes, the more self-defeating talk pops up.

"This doesn't make any sense."

"You're doing fine," I say. "Keep going."

"It's probably not any good."

"You're doing fine," I say... over and over again.

Finally she blurts out enough for me to help her locate the key scenes

After she rushes back to our workshop room to jot the scenes onto her newly created Plot Planner for her individual project, I shake my head in despair. If she has so many doubts in her head in just recounting ideas, how is she ever going to overcome the demons long enough to write the story?

Sure, she's outside the box and that can be challenging in this time of high conformity and deep suspicion of anything different. However, I firmly believe those of us lucky enough to call ourselves writers are being called to create. When we and our flaws sabotage ourselves from showing up to write and from reaching our goals of completion, yet one more idea the universe looks to us to manifest disappears and who knows how much longer the evolution of our planet will take because we doubt ourselves before we ever even try???

Based on the picture I saw in the jigsaw puzzle of her story, I saw greatness.

Hope you show up for your jigsaw puzzle today. I see greatness there, too...